Spurs beat their north London rivals 2-1 at White Hart Lane on Sunday to heap further misery on the Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger. His team have won just two of their opening seven league fixtures and find themselves only a couple of points above the relegation zone.

They are also eight points behind Newcastle United, who are in the much-coveted fourth place, and as far as Bale is concerned Arsenal will struggle to make up the ground having allowed Fábregas and Nasri to join Barcelona and Manchester City respectively at the start of the season.

"Arsenal have lost a few players, which makes them more beatable as that has damaged the way they play," said the Welshman. "We exposed that. I think keeping your best players is a massive thing. They are used to how you play and what you do. It is vitally important to do that and build your team around them. It is important that we have [Luka Modric], and Arsenal were unlucky not to keep theirs.

"They are still a great team. They haven't had the best of starts but I am sure they will improve. They have a lot of young players who are going to grow up in the next season or two and learn a lot. I am sure they will be fine."

Meanwhile, Alex Song has called on his Arsenal team-mates to fight to turn the club's season around. "We need to learn because we are not in a good situation at the moment," he said. "When everybody comes back we will feel very good and strong. We need to keep our heads up and try to push ourselves to learn and give the best for the future.

"Arsenal being in this position is not normal. We now need to show something very good, not just for the fans but for us as well. It is very important for us to come back after the [international] break with a winning mentality. We want to show that we are not down, we are here and we can do something good.

"The next five games are very important for us. We need to win every single one to come back and show the fans that we are ready and that we are to fight for the league."